


The Inheritence

by bookhobbit



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Tumblr Prompt, i can't believe that was a common tag already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: Twoflower bequeaths Rincewind something left over from Cohen's reign. It's, unfortunately, not as compact as an old vase or a bottle of brandy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Started this...oh, two months ago, after an anon requested Rincewind+an 'unusual inheritance' prompt from a tumblr list. Sorry it took so long, anon.

"Um," says Rincewind.

It seems the only appropriate reaction to the situation, really. What else are you supposed to do with dozens of polite, quiet Agatean warriors armed to the teeth show up at the your office door and go respectfully down on one knee?

"Er," Rincewind says, for a little variety.

One warrior, front and center of the pack, rises to her feet. "Is there something which concerns you, great wizard?" she says, in the manner of one talking to a venerable and respected elder who, nevertheless, has clearly gotten the facts a little bit wrong and needs careful handling.

"Who the hell are you and why the hell are you here?" asks Rincewind, feeling that this just about covers it.

The warrior nods at him. "I, personally, am Fivetrees. I am head of this order, the Emperor Cohen's Order. The current emperor, His Imperial Majesty Twoflower, sent us to you."

"Why?" asks Rincewind.

"One generally does not stop to question an emperor's orders," says Fivetrees politely, folding her hands. "The essence of good soldiery is the ability to obey commands."

"I see," says Rincewind. He sits slowly down in his office chair. "And you're staying, are you?"

"If you wish, or if there are any missions you wish to complete, you may ask us to fulfill them. We are capable of fulfilling many tasks, even those which some might consider impossible." She raises her chin proudly. "Only command us."

"Erm," says Rincewind. "I'll be right back."

Then he shuts the office door in their faces.

Rincewind, very composedly, sits down and writes a letter. It's really more of a note, and the full text of it reads:

_Twoflower,_

_Why_ _the HELL_ _did you send a hundred warriors with swords straight to my door???_

_Yours, with a much weaker heart than I had three hours ago,_

_Rincewind_

Rincewind examines the note. The question marks might be seen as excessive by an outsider, but he feels that they are really the only way to accurately convey his mental state.

He opens the door back up and says, to the still-waiting Fivetrees. "Take this to the university clacks tower, please." Rincewind gives her brief directions; she nods at a face in the crowd, who takes the letter and slips off.

Now that he stops to count them, there probably aren't a hundred. They've all got enough weapons for at least three hundred, in his biased judgement, but there's perhaps half what he'd originally thought. All of them are wearing identical armour, and all of them have equally serious, determined eyes.

Rincewind remembers Cohen's eyes; they'd been full of fire and brimstone and mischief and irritability and a thousand other things, but underneath it all there was always a core of steel. In these warriors, that core is exposed. He can see it reflected in their faces, despite their many variations. He wonders if this is what Cohen looked like, when he was young.

"All right," he says aloud. "Right. Well, you'll need a place to stay, won't you, if you're going to stay."

"We can sleep in the field if need be."

"Shouldn't do that. Shouldn't do that. You've got no idea what's out there. It's right by the Ankh." Rincewind scrubs at his beard with a hand, trying to think. "Right. I know what to do."

He marches out, followed by the warriors, straight to the HEM building.

 

Ponder seems to be having a good time. His students are crowded around HEX, doing something mysterious with bits of cheese, and he himself is at the center, theorizing.

" - increase the efficiency if we use nuts, I think you'll find," he says, and then catches sight of Rincewind. He puts on his 'ah, yes, an Outsider to whom I can explain our endeavors' face, the one that always precedes an incomprehensible explanation.

Then he catches sight of Rincewind's entourage, and his eyes widen.

"That is a lot of foreign dignitaries," he says a little faintly.

"We are not dignitaries," says Fivetrees. "We are here to serve the Great Wizard."

"The great who?" says Ponder, raising his eyebrows politely.

"Me," says Rincewind, in a defeated tone of voice.

As one, the students and Ponder turn to look at him.

"Ah," says Ponder, in a tone that is very deliberately _not_ full of laughter.

"Don't you even start," says Rincewind, frowning at him. "Just come and help me find some place for them to sleep. They can't go out by the river, you know they can't."

"No, I think we've had quite enough fish-related injuries for this year," says Ponder, rubbing his hands. "All right, then. I think I've got an idea."

 

Twoflower's reply by clacks comes quickly, displaying, as usual, no awareness of the medium's supposed conciseness. _I'm so sorry you were startled. Perhaps I ought to have given you more of a warning, but I wanted it to be a surprise. I thought it would be nice. They were Cohen's, you see. They're a special order that sprang up around him, very elite, very skilled. But I've already got the Imperial army and it's not as though I need more bodyguards. So I thought I'd send them to you, and they could protect you. By the way, old chap, there's only fifty, so it's not so great a problem as you suppose._

Upon reflection - a lot of reflection - Rincewind decides this was, sort of, a sweet gesture. Ish. Something like that. Even if fifty warriors do make the place a bit crowded. There are some old outbuildings behind the university where guests have occasionally stayed; right now, all fifty of them are stuffed in like sardines. They don't seem to mind.

"The Emperor," explains Three Shining Opals, "taught us to endure hardship."

"I'll just bet he did," mutters Rincewind, pacing around the front of the room. "Well, at least there's always enough to eat." The Unseen University's dinner table could probably support ten warrior orders with no strain, except that the wizards might have slightly less full-to-bursting stomachs after every meal.

"Yes, great wizard," says Opal.

"You don't have to call me that, I'm not the Emperor," says Rincewind irritably.

"You're our commander, at the moment."

Rincewind waves a hand. "Don't remind me. Please."

 

For the most part, Rincewind avoids the outbuildings. That is, until Ridcully comes to have a chat with him.

"Rincewind," he begins.

"Professor Rincewind, I think," says Rincewind diffidently, because he'd _worked_ for that title.

"Yes, yes. Of course. Professor Rincewind. What are all these women doing about the place?"

Rincewind raises his eyebrows. "Women, sir?"

"The ladies in the armor."

"Ah, the warriors." Rincewind would estimate that about twenty of them are women. Another twenty are men. There's an additional ten he's not sure about and he figures that's probably an intentional impression so he hasn't asked.

"Yes," says Ridcully. "It's a wizarding university. Can't have women hanging about. People have been complaining."

"So you have no problem with the men hanging about?" says Rincewind. "The armored men. With big swords."

"Not really. Do they want to become wizards?"

"None of them do, I think."

"You'd better tell me what's going on," says Ridcully.

Rincewind explains, Ridcully watching with an increasingly incredulous expression.

"This is the fella who thinks you're a Great Wizard?" he says, when Rincewind's finished.

"Yes," says Rincewind, with just a trace of defiance.

"Well, it would be a funny old world if we were all alike," says Ridcully, musing. "Anyway, you've got to do something about it. I personally don't care, but you know how the Dean is."

"And the Senior Wrangler."

"And the Senior Wrangler."

Rincewind sighs. "I really have no idea. I can't just toss them out on their ear, can I? Hello, I heard you were a loyal warrior order, bugger off?"

"I'm sure you'll come up with something," says Ridcully, clapping him on the shoulder and getting up. "You always were an ingenious chap."

Somehow, despite being nominally a compliment, this sounds vaguely threatening. Rincewind watches Ridcully go and tries to think of ways to get rid of fifty warriors armed to the teeth. It's not entirely easy.

 

_Attempt no. 1: The Luggage._

Rincewind doesn't actually intend to get rid of the warrior troupe - order, order, troupe sounds like a circus thing and he doesn't think they'd appreciate that. It's just that, when the Luggage breaks out of the university _again_ and he goes to check the outbuilding, Fivetrees asks him what's wrong.

"The Luggage has gone missing," he says, "I just wanted to know if it was here."

"The what?"

"My box on legs."

"Ah," says Fivetrees wisely. The Luggage has had a few run-ins with the order. Mostly these have consisted of wrestling matches, or whatever it is when one of the participants is a suitcase. "He has escaped to find new opponents?"

"Possibly. Or possibly just to find crisps."

"Would you like us to look for him?"

Rincewind pauses. "Not sure you should do that. Not sure at all. It's a bit stroppy."

Fivetrees' eyes narrow. "I believe it may be safely said that we are stroppier."

So, thinks Rincewind, so falls the Order of Emperor Cohen. He goes back to the university to sort his rocks a bit more, grimly expecting ill news about the tragic demise of valiant young people. Well, he had warned them. He'd told them not to try it.

"No my fault," he mutters, carefully putting a harsh, unforgiving, blocky rock in its proper place.

He loses track of time a bit, so it's rather a shock when he looks up what must be a few hours later and discovers Fivetrees standing over him.

"We've retrieved the box," she says. Rincewind notices a large bruise in the shape of a little foot on her face, and winces involuntarily.

"Oh," he says. "Thank you. No, er, problems?"

"No insurmountable ones."

"Good. Thank you."

Behind Fivetrees, the Luggage sulks into the room and makes its mysterious way up onto the wardrobe. Rincewind is left both with it to scold, and the warrior order still to deal with.

 

_Attempt no. 2: The Tezumen._

It's not at all a malevolent idea. He just thinks, maybe if he sends them on a long quest, they'll get distracted somewhere and settle down to form, oh, a little farming town or something. A school for warriors. Something. A purpose in life.

Besides, most of them seem to be itching for something to do. They keep vying for the chance to wrestle the Luggage more, or take mail to the post office, or duel Modo the gardener for yelling at them to stop leaving footprints on his lawn. Bad for the peace.

"What I'd like you to do," he explains to Fivetrees, "is go and bring me back some Tezumen tablets. Any tablets, I just want to get better at reading the language."

"Tablets of the language. Shall we try to find some that seem to be relevant to language learning?"

"If you can, but nothing too basic. I know the writing system already."

She inclines her head. "We will return."

 _Hopefully not,_ thinks Rincewind, settling down.

He has a perfectly peaceful month. He spends a lot of time brushing up on his Borogravian, because they've recently become a trading partner of Ankh-Morpork. He hasn't used it in ages, and it's satisfying to feel it coming back as he reads through grammars. Shame he doesn't know any native speakers. He wonders idly if he ought to have asked the warrior order to go and ask someone if they wanted to take a visit to Ankh-Morpork and talk to a wizard, but dismisses the idea. Too much trouble.

Ridcully stops by to make a vague approving comment about the warrior-less state of the university. Rincewind feels satisfied with this.

Of course, it doesn't last, because nothing can. After about, oh, thirty-five days, there's an immense commotion outside the door of his room, which opens to deliver Three Shining Opals with a load of tablets in one hand.

They smile, bow, and put them down on the table.

"It was scarcely anything," they say, and then, swaying slightly, go out of the room.

Rincewind goes and checks on the lot of them later, but they seem to be fine - just a bit tired from their journey.

"The biggest difficulty was in finding them," Fivetrees explained. "After we had, we chose to save time by rushing our journey."

"You really didn't have to do that," says Rincewind. "Sorry."

Fivetrees looks injured. "We have a _reputation_ , great wizard."

"Right. Right. Of course," says Rincewind.

So much for _that_ plan.

 

_Attempt no. 3: Vetinari._

"No," says Vetinari, shaking his head in dismissal. "I really do not need any loyal warrior orders. We've only just managed to get rid of the last one."

"Oh," says Rincewind. "Do you know of anyone who would like them for a gift?"

"How many did you say there were?"

"Fifty."

"No. No, I don't think so." Vetinari steeples his fingers and peers at Rincewind. He doesn't ask how Rincewind came by a loyal warrior order of fifty soldiers, but the, an albatross has probably already flown in to tell him the precise details, down to the route they took.

Rincewind fidgets.

"I can't just give them to the university," he finds himself saying, filling up the silence desperately. "I mean, the Archchancellor won't let me keep them around, so..."

"I see. Thank you for thinking of the city." Vetinari pauses. The tiniest, tiniest hint of a smile quirks up at the corners of his mouth.

"In fact, now that I think of it," he says, slowly, "I do know someone who would like them as a gift."

 

" _Hell_ no," says Sir Samuel Vimes, head of the City Watch. Rincewind knows him in passing from a variety of occasions on which the university has hobnobbed with the city's rich and famous, a category which to Vimes's apparent disgruntlement includes him. And from the times when the wizards have been involved in Watch business. And also from -

"Hey, wait a minute," says Vimes, narrowing his eyes. "You're the one with the box on legs."

"Um," says Rincewind, who doesn't want to say 'yes' even though that's the truthful answer.

"Got that thing locked up tight, have you?"

"It's shut up in my room."

"Good." Vimes glares suspiciously, lighting a cigar. "Don't want any more incidents."

"No, sir," says Rincewind. There have been a large number of Incidents related to the Luggage, ranging from disturbance of the peace to grievous bodily harm, and, of course, Looking At Me In A Funny Way. Rincewind hadn't known this was an offense, but Sergeant Colon had been quite definite about it when he'd been treed that one time. Or, more accurately, buildinged.

"Now what's this about soldiers? We're a civilian force, not a military one."

"They're not really military," Rincewind explains. When Vetinari had sent him here, he'd suspected it was a futile mission, but one didn't say no to the Patrician. "They're a sort of bodyguard force."

"Why do you need bodyguards? You're a wizard."

 _Ha_ , thinks Rincewind, joke's on you, _my entire life can be summed up by needing bodyguards_. But, to facilitate this transfer, he says, "I don't. That's the point, really. I can't have them around the university, and his Lordship said he was sure you would have a use for them."

Vimes snorts. "He did, did he? And tell me how you came by these...warriors?"

"A friend sent them to me."

Vimes's eyebrows raise nearly to his hairline. "Some friends you must have."

"Yes," says Rincewind in a hopeless voice.

"Well, you can forget about foisting them on me," says Vimes. "I've got better things to do than deal with fifty people with swords getting under my feet, no matter what Vetinari thinks. I haven't got use for even a single one, thank you."

 

So, naturally, three days later, Rincewind is called in to facilitate the transfer of ten warriors over to the Watch. He'd sat down to discuss it with them; "It's a bit like warrioring, but not really at all," he'd said. "Keeping the peace. Upholding the laws. You get paid."

"Wage labour," says Fivetrees with defiance, "Is a way of devaluing the worker in the pursuit of profit."

Rincewind shrugs, because she's not exactly _wrong_.

"I wouldn't mind," says Three Shing Opals. "Will we get to keep our weapons?"

"They'll probably make you use Watch ones."

"Well, that sounds all right." Opal frowns. "But we can't just leave you, you're our commander."

Rincewind waves a hand hastily. "Go, be happy, go. It's fine. It's fine."

Opal looks at Fivetrees, who shrugs. "He's the one in charge. If you want to and you've been released from duties..."

"They have been," says Rincewind. "All of you who want to go. All released from duties. To do anything you like."

A hand goes up. Rincewind locates the attached face. "Yes...Peony, isn't it?"

"Yes," says Peony, one of the tallest warriors in the order and therefore instantly recognizable. "Does this offer extend to other professions? Only I've always wanted to become a florist."

Rincewind blinks at him. "A florist, eh?" _Don't say 'that's appropriate',_ he tells himself.

"Yes."

"Well, who am I to stop a man from following his dreams. I'll see if I can get one of the shops in the city to apprentice you or something. Anyone else want to leave for watchmanning or fishmongering or horsemaking or anything?"

A few hands had gone up, a few voices chimed in that they'd like their chance with the Watch, so here Rincewind is.

Vimes says, "And what, pray tell, can you all do?"

Opal, who seems to have become the speaker for the group of future coppers, volunteers, "We can all fight very well."

"Do you know anything about the law?"

"No."

"Well, doesn't matter, we'll have to teach you regardless."

"We can survive unusually difficult terrain," says Opal, straightening their back a little. "If you need to send anyone somewhere difficult to access, any of us will die before failing."

"I'd really rather you didn't do that," says Vimes. "But we'll get the details worked out later. I suppose you're in as recruits."

So that gets ten placed out. He finds an apprenticeship for Peony

What to do with the other thirty-nine?

 

_Attempt no. 4: Conina._

It's a mystery how he didn't think of it before, he later tells himself. The most obvious solution possible.

Rincewind hasn't seen Conina in a couple of years, but they've settled into the sort of friendship-ish where you can go that long without talking to someone and still pick up naturally. Well, as naturally as is ever possible with him.

So he writes her a letter in the care of her usual contact, and is pleasantly surprised when she drops by a week later.

"I was in the area," she explains. "Been hairdressing lately."

"Ah? You've given up heroing?"

"No, I'm moonlighting. Barbarian hero by day, hairdresser by night."

"Not too many of those," says Rincewind.

"Not too many heroes at all," says Conina with a sigh. "It's just me and Herenna and good old Diome, Mistress of the Night these days. She's not a hero, of course, she's an evil overlord, not enough of those around either."

"Ah. Well, in the first point, I may have a solution."

Rincewind takes Conina out to the lawn, where the order is all temporarily assembled. Fivetrees is in front, her posture straight as an axe, her chin lifted proudly.

"This," says Rincewind, "is the daughter of Emperor Cohen." He thinks about this for a moment. "Well...one of them. Conina, these are the Warriors of the Order of Emperor Cohen."

Conina gives him a look. "Emperor?"

"Long story. I'll tell you later. Point is, these were your dad's order. Trained them himself, didn't he, Fivetrees?"

"That is correct." Fivetrees makes a sweeping bow to Conina. "I'm pleased to meet you, my lady."

Conina blinks. "Lady?"

"Fivetrees, don't you think Conina is more, um, worthy of your service than me? I mean, she's a direct descendant of the Emperor."

Fivetrees shrugs. "Our service is not hereditary, but certainly if you wish we will serve her."

"Rincewind!" says Conina. "What am I going to do with fifty bodyguards?"

"Thirty-nine. And you could teach them to be barbarian heroes, for one."

Fivetrees perks up. "Like the Emperor?"

"Exactly like. She learned from him."

Fivetrees turns back to her order, then to Conina. "You'd teach us?"

"Is this some sort of conspiracy?" says Conina. "What do you want from me? You're not just going to hand over thirty-nine students."

"I just want them to have something to do with their life," says Rincewind. "It's really boring here. I've worked hard for that. I don't think it'll suit you - " he directs this last to the order. "I really don't. Conina lives...interesting times."

Conina smiles slowly. "I do my best. Fivetrees, is it? Are you the leader?"

Fivetrees bows again. "At your service, my lady empress."

Conina's smile grows. "I'm not an empress, not of anything. But you can stick with the my lady while I'm teaching you, if you like. All right, then. All of you who want to be barbarian heroes, follow me out onto the lawn and we'll take a headcount. I'll start arranging things in a few days."

To Rincewind's satisfaction, most of the order follow Conina out. Soon, the little meadow is empty, except for a single warrior. Rincewind recognizes him as Winding River.

"Not interested in becoming a barbarian hero?" Rincewind asks.

River shakes his head. "I'd like to become a wizard."

"Oh. Really? Can you do any magic? Not that I'm one to talk, but..."

"A little. I can light a fire with my mind. And I have some ideas about the metaphysical  nature of magic."

"Oh. Well. Good start," says Rincewind. "Ponder'll love that, I suspect. We'll go and see the Archchancellor, shall we?"

They go, and the order ends on a closing door.

  



End file.
